Professor Darren Croft

Professor Croft is a behavioral ecologist with research interests in two main questions (i) What are the mechanisms and functions that underpin the structure of animal societies? (ii) What are the evolutionary implications of this structure? To address these questions Professor Croft’s research group combines experimental and observational work on wild animal populations with controlled laboratory experiments. The research topics covered are broad and include; the evolution of cooperation, life history evolution, social recognition and sexual conflict. As such he works on a wide range of study systems ranging from small fresh water fish to resident killer whales. Professor Croft uses social network analysis as a tool to unravel the complex nature of how animal societies are structured. Recently his work has been extended to questions of animal health and welfare and is working with the UK dairy industry to study social components of welfare and productivity in commercial dairy cattle.

In the news: Listen to Darren talking about is research on sexual conflict in guppies on NERC’s planet earthpodcast or read about this work in NERCs planet earthpublication. Read about the media interest in our work ondairy cattle or about how our work on social behavior and life history evolution inkiller whales is given new insight into the evolution of menopause.